Impersonal Attractions

by Sarah Shankman

  “We can hope that when you become a rich and famous author you don’t also become fat, pompous, and boring, or does it come with the territory?”

  “God, I hope not. I plan to remain svelte and humble and fascinating, my own self.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Lola sipped her coffee.

  “And how about you? How’s your love life? Met any more midget gynecologists?”

  “Nope. No blind dates. No ads.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve pretty much run through the possibilities of the letters I got.”

  “Oh, God, that reminds me.” Annie told her about David and the ads he had circled in the Guardian, including Lola’s.

  “I’ll look back and see if there’s anybody who sounds like him. It’s possible. I just skimmed over the ones from white boys. If I find him, should I give him a call?”

  Annie laughed. “Wouldn’t that be funny? Up to you, my friend. Depends on what you’re looking for.”

  “Worth an hour or two?” Lola arched her eyebrows suggestively.

  “Definitely.”

  “I was just teasing. I’ll look and let you know.”

  They both ordered raspberries with crème fraîche and another cup of espresso.

  “So you’ve written off Lloyd Andrews and David. Anybody else on the horizon?”

  “Not really. Except this man Harry that my friend Sam introduced me to a few weeks ago at a party. But he’s never called. Maybe I should give him a jingle.”

  *

  The party had been in a mansion perched high on a hill in Pacific Heights. The twinkling lights of Sausalito and Tiburon across the Bay had been reflected in three mammoth mirrors on the living-room wall. The room was done in Art Deco plum, blue, white, and silver. Acres of cloud gray carpet billowed, threatening as quicksand to her high-heeled black sandals. Calla lilies and purple irises bloomed out of season in Baccarat vases. Tuxedoed waiters circulated with oysters Rockefeller, shrimp remoulade, crayfish bisque in minuscule pastry cups.

  Their hostess greeted Sam and Annie with a hug, handed them long-stemmed glasses of Lillet, and introduced them to a small group of bejeweled older women and dark-suited men.

  Annie had wandered over to the baby Steinway to give a closer listen to the Cole Porter. She chatted a bit with the pianist, Tim Belk. He was very good. He was playing Frank Sinatra’s “Emily” for her when Sam approached with Harry.

  Sam had mentioned Harry on the way over, a friend of an old boyfriend. She had often thought that Annie might like him, but he wasn’t an easy one. He could be a little off-putting at first.

  Annie could see what she meant. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive. He was 6′ 2″, about 200 pounds, with football shoulders but a little softness around the middle. His face was round, his teeth even and white, his eyes that kind of chameleon hazel that changed with the color of his shirt. What was left of his hair was about the color of hers. But she didn’t mind balding men.

  The oddness was in his manner. After Sam introduced them and tactfully disappeared they exchanged the usual pleasantries about the house, the view, the food, and were just about to move to a second more personal plateau when he lurched off. He evaporated, with a sudden flash of shoulders and elbows that seemed to be the first part of him to go.

  So he didn’t find me fascinating, she thought. But I won’t take this personally. I’m appropriately dressed. My hair is clean. She checked herself quickly in a mirror. I do not have spinach in my teeth. I did not say anything stupid. This is his problem, not mine.

  Then he reappeared at her elbow. He steered her into the dining room to show her a painting. He was a collector. He would have loved to own this piece, a magnificent Frankenthaler, but hadn’t had the cash at the time. Their hostess obviously never had any kind of cash flow problem.

  His style of conversation was thrust-parry. He talked very rapidly. His sentences seemed to come out of the middle of paragraphs that were running in his mind. Once he had spoken, he disappeared—either he walked away a few steps with that strange leading of shoulders and elbows or his attention seemed to take flight.

  After about ten minutes he muttered something about a head stop and flew out altogether.

  Odd, very odd, Annie thought. Yet there was a lot that interested her. He was witty. He had a certain presence. He was a mover and shaker in the city. He was sophisticated. He was cute. But he was also gone.

  She sighed and mingled with a group chatting about sailing and then another speculating on how the 49ers were going to finish the season.

  Finally she found Sam in the living room, gave her the high sign, and they got their coats.

  When they were almost out the door Harry appeared again slightly behind her. “I’ll give you a jingle soon,” he said, “and we’ll have dinner.” He squeezed her upper arm and was off.

  *

  “And you haven’t heard from him since?” Lola asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Nice thing about phones is that they work both ways. I’d give him a call.”

  When she got home from lunch Annie had had just enough champagne in her to take Lola’s advice. Harry’s secretary said he was in a meeting. She was sure he’d get back to her as soon as possible. Easy for her to say.

  *

  Later that evening Annie and her friend Tom Albano walked back to her place after catching a revival of Bonnie and Clyde.

  “What’s the matter, pal?” He threw an arm around her shoulder. “You seem a little down tonight.”

  “Not really. Maybe just working too hard.”

  “Those forty-five men from the Bay Guardian keeping you up too late?” He never forgot a thing.

  “That’s research, my friend.”

  “Uh-huh. No keepers then?” Tom was a fisherman who often spoke the lingo.

  “Nope, I threw them all back.”

  “Well, that’s their problem, not yours. You just haven’t found the right one yet—the lucky guy who deserves you.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in Prince Charming.”

  “I don’t. That’s your problem. No one’s perfect, you know.” He chucked her under the chin.

  “And what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “When are you getting married again?”

  “I’m not in any rush. This has been good for me. I’ve learned to cook. To do my laundry without everything turning pink.”

  “Really? What’s your secret?”

  “I take it to the Chinese laundry.”

  Annie laughed. “I guess being married to Clara would make you cautious about getting hooked up again. But what’s your fantasy? When you do start looking what are you going to be looking for?”

  He grinned down at her as he took her key. “I want a tall blonde woman with long legs and popcorn in her teeth.”

  Annie shoved him through the door ahead of her. She shook her head at his rear end. Tom had always worn the worst pants she’d ever seen on a human being. Underneath that bagginess might be a nice body, but who would ever know?

  As usual, they played a few hands of gin rummy. Tom was a real shark. Over the years she had amassed a debt of several thousand dollars to him on paper. This time she stayed even. He had a nightcap and went home, giving her a big hug at the door.

  Then there was a blank space. She didn’t come up against it often, kept very busy so she wouldn’t. But sometimes it crept in anyway.

  Loneliness sat and looked at her from the other end of her rose-colored sofa.

  Sometimes she thought that her chances of finding love in this town were about as good as finding a unicorn on her fire escape.

  *

  Brushing her teeth, she remembered that there had been a call on her answering machine. She’d thought it would be rude to check her messages while Tom was there. She flipped it on. There was Harry’s voice. She clutched the neck of her nightgown in excitement.

  Oh, crap. She and Sam had been fooling around and she’d left
that stupid request on her tape. “Leave your name and number and any other personal statistics you feel comfortable saying aloud, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.” He was going to think she was a fool.

  “Hello? This is the author? I want to leave my personal statistics.

  “My name is Harry.

  “I have a cold.

  “I am leaving town on business, but I’d like to take you to dinner next Tuesday night. I’ll pick you up at eight.

  “I wear a size twelve shoe.

  “I wear a tie.

  “I like collar pins.

  “I like to drink wine, particularly red wine.

  “And I like fish. What do you like?”

  TWENTY-SIX

  After he’d proved himself with Lucinda Washington he’d had to wait a couple of months for his official initiation at a state gathering in a little town near Baton Rouge. But the smiles and the slaps on the back were enough. He knew he belonged.

  The feeling grew after the midnight swearing in that took place in the middle of a field, about two hundred men, their voices rolling like thunder, welcoming him. For the first time in his life he was part of something big, something important, and his life had purpose.

  Now he had two lives. The old one, going to school, doing his chores, staying out of Pa’s reach. And the new one, the secret one, where men older than he was admired him as he proved himself to be the most deadly of the night riders.

  He didn’t mind the meetings, the planning, the organizing, the sitting around on his haunches on cold barn floors. It all led to the bloody bursts of midnight glory.

  After Lucinda there had been a nigger preacher from a small community nearby, New Blessings. He had been stirring up trouble among his congregation.

  The boy had never made a bomb before, but once he got the hang of it, it was easy. The blasts had gone off like clockwork, right in the middle of choir practice.

  Three of them had died and a couple more were blown up pretty good. They had learned their lesson. There were no more meetings in the A.M.E. Baptist Church, and the doors in the Quarter were locked shut to the knockings of Yankees in the night. They’d have to find a town other than New Blessings wherein to do their good deeds.

  But the bombing didn’t have the thrill of contact with women like Lucinda Washington. And that kind of opportunity didn’t present itself very often. Most of the nigger women stayed home and minded their kids while their menfolk took the chances, spoke out, and got themselves killed. So, occasionally, he had to do a little something on his own.

  Sometimes he rode at night with his friend T.J., a sheriff’s deputy. Patrolling the back roads could be boring, T.J. had told him, unless you knew what you were looking for: dark nights, parked cars with steamed windshields, a makeshift lovers’ lane at the edge of a cotton field.

  The trick was to spot them and drive up real slow with the lights doused. Then zap them with the big lights and what you had was a tangled mess of arms and legs and titties and underwear and sweat.

  If they were white, you stood and lectured them while they put their clothes back on, listening to them stutter while they explained to you what they were doing there. Every once in a while it was a preacher’s son or a schoolteacher’s daughter, and then you might make them get out of the car first before they got dressed. Then you got a really good look and you knew they sure as hell weren’t going to go home and tell any tales.

  If the couple was black, that was a different story. Catch a nigger couple diddling each other in the back seat of a rusty old Ford and you could have yourself some fun.

  One night, riding with T.J., he lucked out.

  After hitting them with the big light T.J. pulled his sawed-off shotgun out of the patrol car and ordered them out of the cab of the battered old pickup truck. They were teenagers, no older than the boy. She was a pretty little thing, if you liked dark meat. Both of them were scared as shit.

  T.J. made them take off the rest of their clothes and then hit the dirt.

  “Nah, boy, not like that. Get your ass over on top of that girl, like you was doing before.”

  “No, sir, Mr. T.J., we wasn’t doing nothing like that,” the terrified young black man whined.

  “Well, you was wanting to if you wasn’t, so you going to get your wish now. Do it, boy. Hump her. Now!”

  T.J. hit him in the butt with the shotgun and the young man assumed the position.

  Terror had weakened his ardor, however, and, as the young girl sobbed beneath him and T.J. yelled in his ear, he couldn’t perform.

  “You good for nothing nigger!” T.J. roared. “I promised my friend we was going to have some fun watching you niggers fuck and you’re making me out a liar. What you got to say for yourself, boy?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. T. J., sir.” He wiped tears and snot from his face with the back of his hand.

  T.J. slapped him with the butt of the shotgun and the young man hit the ground.

  “Don’t you look up from there either, boy. You just lay there with your eyes closed. Do you understand me?” Then he gestured to the still naked girl sobbing on the ground as if he were the host at a party. “After you. Help yourself.” And so he did. He enjoyed himself a lot. He liked the acrid smell of fear that rolled in waves off her, which was even stronger than the odors of hair pomade, Cashmere Bouquet powder, and Pall Malls. The smell of fear was very exciting.

  But then, as she twisted and moaned beneath him—was it pain, was it fear, or did she like it—he couldn’t finish. He couldn’t get there.

  The dispatcher’s voice crackled over T.J.’s radio, and then T.J. was urging him to come on, he had a call to answer.

  But he couldn’t hurry, he couldn’t make it happen, and he was starting to get mad.

  “Fuck me, bitch,” he growled into her tear-streaked face, and then he slapped her as hard as he could.

  There was a small snap as her nose broke and blood gushed red across the dirt.

  Then it clicked. That’s what was missing.

  It was the blood and the knife that got him home.

  They did their magic once again.

  Within two minutes, he and T.J. were back in the patrol car headed toward the interstate and a three-car accident at the Acornville Road overpass.

  “Thanks, T.J.,” he said.

  His friend stepped on the gas and turned on the siren. “My pleasure.” He grinned. He hesitated a minute. “But I guess I really didn’t count on killing one.”

  There was a long silence as they rolled past dark fields and crossed a narrow steel bridge over the river.

  “It was just a nigger.”

  “Right.” T.J. reached over and ruffled his friend’s hair, which was damp with sweat.

  But after he’d dropped the boy off on the road near his house T.J. looked back for a long moment in his rearview mirror and wondered.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  By five o’clock that Tuesday afternoon Annie knew she had been stood up. Would a grown man make a date on an answering machine and then not call back to confirm? Why hadn’t she called him? Now it was too late. If Harry was coming, he was coming, and if he wasn’t, she wasn’t going to call him up and make a fool of herself.

  She was on her way to the money machine at the Union Street branch of the Wells Fargo. Perry’s was right next door. Harry was probably in there yakking it up with his friends and ogling the pretty young girls.

  Will you stop? she said. So what if he is? He’s going to take you to dinner later. In three hours. Or is he?

  She was just about to cross Union to the automatic teller. The wind that always rose in the late afternoon was blowing her long blonde hair into her face. As she brushed a curl back out of her mouth, her mother’s solitaire caught in one of her gold hoop earrings. Zap! The earring pulled out and was gone.

  Annie wore very little jewelry. These earrings, given to her in a fit of generosity by Morose Mario, were the only pair of real gold ones she owned.

  She stood frozen
in that same stance she assumed when a contact lens popped. Maybe it was still on her body somewhere and if she didn’t move, it wouldn’t fall.

  An elderly man walking a small white poodle stopped and asked if he could help her.

  She began to tell him about the earring. As she did, it dislodged from her shoulder, where it had been resting, and flew, glinting, through the darkening cool air and landed three feet in front of her, smack on a Pacific Gas and Electric grate in the sidewalk. The earring circled, circled, slowly, slowly, and then fell. Plop. Through the slotted grate and down into a black hole.

  She, the elderly man, and his dog stood staring first at one another and then down into the hole.

  “Call PG&E,” he suggested.

  “It’s after five. They probably won’t come.”

  “Miss, is the earring real gold?”

  Annie nodded.

  “It’s worth a try.”

  The PG&E lady had heard it all before. She put Annie on hold and three minutes later she was back. A service truck would be out shortly.

  “How soon is shortly?”

  “We try to answer all our service calls within four hours,” she answered, sounding not unlike Lily Tomlin.

  Four hours! It was pushing five-thirty. Annie still had to get some money out of the machine, bathe, dress, and put a fresh coat of polish on her nails before she settled down to chew them, wondering if Harry was going to show at eight.

  But, on the other hand, the PG&E lady said, it might take fifteen minutes. She had to give them a chance. If she left the grate unguarded, they would come and leave and she’d never know. The man with the dog promised to watch her grate for a few minutes while she raced across the street to the bank. He’d be there, he said, unless his wife finished shopping first.

  She got her money, but the man was gone. Had she missed the truck? She’d just have to wait and see. What time was it? Almost six. Had Harry called and left a confirming message on her machine? She could call Angie, who had a key to her apartment. Angie could listen to her machine and tell her.

  But she had no change. The bank machine only spit out fresh twenties.